


pretty weeper

by khalasaar



Series: ms believer [2]
Category: Girl Meets World
Genre: F/F, i hate myself sometimes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-01
Updated: 2016-10-01
Packaged: 2018-08-19 00:06:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8180969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/khalasaar/pseuds/khalasaar
Summary: concept: me, walking around in your dreams. and your nightmares, too.(maya's version)





	

This dream is upsetting as soon as it starts. Maya, on her stomach, in grass gone yellow with drought. The flora is crackling-dry against her skin, so dead it’s gone sharp. She pulls a hand off the ground and it comes back webbed with the extensive dent of pebbles. The lake is very, very green.

Which lake? Don’t know. Her brain says _the_ lake. Like there’s nothing outside this grassland and the empty, algae-thick pond.

There’s a hot, stifling wind coming off the water, stippled with cattail feathers where it swirls into Maya’s lungs. She hacks out an exhale and plant particles float off her tongue. The sun is shrouded by rain-gray clouds, turning every bit of light smoky and silver, the rest of the world gone hazy with the promise of an oncoming storm. It all feels ethereal. The dead wildflowers. The screeching breeze.

She rolls onto her back and her hair falls halfway into the water. There is not enough energy in any part of Maya to care. So what if hair’s wet. If her hair’s covered in plant gunk.

Something tugs on it.

“Maya.”

Her heart stills. The voice is like a purr - something sweet and lovely. A little hoarse.

“Maaaya.” Maya squeezes her eyes shut. She doesn’t want to look or turn but she can’t help it, the voice is pulling at a hook in her chest, the guilt reflex of her brain, and she doesn’t have a choice in turning over, meeting those big brown eyes, feeling her breath catch.

“Riley,” she says, softly.

Riley grins at her, and all her teeth are razor-sharp. She reaches up to pull Maya in.

For a kiss?

(Maya feels bad for thinking this. But it _is_ just a dream.)

Riley’s movements are beautiful and deliberate, pulling until their faces are close enough that her breath raises goosebumps across Maya’s chest.

They are going to kiss. Definitely. But.

Riley tugs just a little too hard, and Maya is just a little too eager, so she reaches the tipping point and leans forward too fast, tumbles right past Riley and into the lake, the chill-and-choking of the water truly awful as it hits her lungs and vacuums inward.

Riley has a grip on her head and is pushing down. Riley has a tail instead of legs, iridescent scales instead of skin. _A mermaid?_ Maya thinks, as the water fills her lungs - _you’d love that_ -

*

Maya wakes up, and it’s the end of the world.

Or the beginning. It’s hard to tell when she’s so stupidly disoriented.

She sits up and chokes trying to breathe in the hot, sweaty darkness of Riley’s room. The air is stagnant and humid enough to be palpable, disgusting: all of the muscles in Maya's body are misbehaving, making her breathe hard and fast, squeezing her chest tight. Her eyes are wide and teary, her brain whirling so fast it hurts. Without thinking, she scrambles to hold onto something and punches Riley right in the nose.

“Ow! What the hell?” She feels Riley bolt to sitting next to her, the scraping of their elbows as Riley reaches up and cradles her bruising face in both hands. It’s dark, and for a moment she remains just a silvery outline against the window, in pain and indeterminable. A gritty inhale sounds throughout the room. “Maya, what-“

“Sorry,” Maya says instantly, heaving for breath. “Bad dream. Sorry.”

“Oh.” Riley stills. The energy around her warps into something tense and intoxicating. Something genuinely concerned. “You okay?”

Maya clenches her hands to stop the shaking. “Yes.” Tendons pop from the back of her fists, deep fissures of human geometry. She watches the movement carefully. It’s better than facing all the rest of it.

"Maya," Riley says softly. Maya can't see her face, but as well-versed as she is in all things Matthews, she knows exactly what that tone of voice means.

”No," Maya says. The admission of it is truly awful.

Riley is silent. Maya bathes in a small moment of relief, but the feeling is almost immediately revoked. Instead of gifting her the mercifully quick, get-it-over-with pain of confession, Riley, grappling awkwardly in the dark, reaches out and finds Maya's hand; then she interlaces their fingers, and presses the conglomerate Maya-Riley hand to her cheek. Her skin is soft and pleasantly warm and it makes Maya want to throw up. Who has thoughts like this about their best friend?

"What can I do?"

 _Leave,_ Maya thinks, hating herself for thinking it. And in Riley's own house.

"Maya," Riley says. The room thrums heavily. Maya can feel her talking, the perfect spatial movement of her jaw where Maya's knuckles are pressed to it.

"Tea," Maya says. It’s the first thing she can think of and a desperate plea for Riley to leave. Her heart is in her throat, beating so hard it hurts. Blood pools in the back of her head. She rips their entwined hands from Riley’s face to resting on the bed between them, where nothing is touching except for fingers and palms, the kind of contact Maya has grown to handle gracefully, just weak enough of a pull for her to crush without preparation. Riley flinches as she moves away, and this is somehow worse than all the rest of it.

“Sure,” she says. The hurt in Riley’s voice is strangled but obvious, and it lingers in the air even as she carefully unwinds herself from Maya’s hand to start towards the door, leaving a cold space in the bed and a silence that can’t be cut. As she walks, she transforms, into the gaseous outline of a girl who doesn’t know how much power she has, how she could crush Maya with just the wrong kind of look: the romantic equivalent of a single fist, spilling spine from the space between each finger.

“Love you,” Riley calls over her shoulder, disappearing.

“Love you too,” mumbles Maya.

*

Maya blinks, hard. “What the f-“

“Shh.” 

A spark erupts in the murky gray air. The sharp, biting sting of electricity.

“Listen,” Maya starts. She looks down at the ocean, a swirling vortex of gray water five hundred feet down the ledge that chokes up rapid swirls of bubble and froth. “I just don’t see why you would put a daycare on the edge of a cliff.”

Behind them, a large gray building looms, cut with the glassy stripes of long windows and the eroded leftovers of a coat of yellow paint. It’s dark and stormy, drizzling warm water. Maya’s hair is starting to curl. A mass of kids, none of them more than two years old, is trickling through the open door of the building toward the cliff.

“Don’t be stupid.” At Riley’s feet, a baby in a pink onesie crawls dangerously close to the drop-off, giggling happily as it traverses piles of loose rock. Maya watches rigidly. All the muscles in her body are locked up like they’ve gone to rust. Terror strips her thoughts right out off her brain. Riley doesn’t seem to care; in fact, she’s not even looking. Her gaze is blank and glassy, fixed on some indeterminable point in the distance. Hair whips around her face like a maelstrom. “They’re fine.”

“They’re not fine! Are you crazy?” Panic rises in Maya’s throat. The babies are swarming now, whole herds of them in various colors, screaming and laughing and wailing as they crawl. Their tiny feet in cloth slippers or miniaturized boots. Their palms stippled with the hard pock-mark of gravel. One nearly slips, and Maya lunges for it, but Riley holds her back with the vice grip of one hand. “Riley!” The baby giggles, turns away toward solid land. Maya’s breath catches.

“What?” Riley whips around. Her eyes are flaming with indignance, the entirety of her body emitting a low, smoky heat. Their faces are pressed so close together that Maya can pick out the freckles across her best friend’s nose. Fury lines Riley’s forehead, her cheeks, wafting off of her in curls of steam. Everything gleams with a dry heat. “You’re more important. Right?”

Maya’s heart stops. “What?”

“You’re more important,” says Riley, as a scream echoes in the background. “Aren’t you?” Her teeth flash in a bare-bones smile. “Don’t you want to be?”

*

It’s uncommon for them to go this long without talking, but Maya is so tired that she can barely stay awake, much less hold a conversation. On the train to school, the air between them is comfortable but quiet. Riley’s wearing double braids and texting Lucas; Maya didn’t brush her hair today and doesn’t have the energy to type. It is moments like this in which the difference between them becomes glaringly obvious.

*

"Love you," Riley says - as she speeds out the classroom, the subway, the bathroom, her hair wild and beautiful. Maya says it back. Though it's becoming more and more uncomfortable.

*

“ - don’t you want to be?”

Maya inhales. 

“I did,” she says, “but not like this.”

Something crawls across her foot. She forces herself not to look at it.

“Well,” Riley says. Scales are starting to rise off her legs, slicing their way through the holes of her jeans. Maya’s nostrils sting with the sudden rush of salt. “Too bad. Pick one.”

Maya glances at the babies. At Riley’s hands, outstretched. 

*

A humming sixth avenue. Tunnels lined with electric light and the slap of spray paint on concrete. The subway shifts, and Riley slams right, nearly into Maya’s lap. Maya shrinks away. Riley, watching sideways, frowns.

“What?” she asks, her voice caught somewhere between distress and confusion. Something flashes across her eyes.

“What, what?” Maya says in fake confusion, praying for a swift exit from the conversation - for her head to be sliced off by some quick explosion - any merciful leeway to leave. But the universe is not so kind. Riley narrows her eyes, the question unrepeated but insistent. “Nothing,” Maya promises, knocking shoulders with her. “It’s fine.”

Riley watches for a second, those dark eyes shiny and ethereal, like some portal to another world, then turns away. The silence returns in an instant. The otherworldly rush of a turning tide. Maya bites through her disappointment and returns to staring out the window, watching the tunnels rush past and wondering who’s brave enough to put their art just out there like that, marking the vast expanse of New York underground, the torn-up paint and shiny brittles of glass so bright everyone can see, and unexpectedly she starts to wish for something that barely even has a name.

 _Riley,_ she says, to herself and entirely silent, _I think this is going to kill me._

*

Her dreams change often, more sporadic than Riley’s repeated nightmares - the brindle dog, the Grecian house. Instead, Maya’s warp by the day. Mermaids, water, dying babies. A conglomerate mess of every monster she’s ever had to deal with. Sometime in tenth grade, she starts losing sleep by the hour. She drops her first period so she can wake up later, though it doesn’t help much. Riley drops bottles of melatonin off by her front door and doesn’t make them watch movies past ten. When Maya tells her about the dreams, which is rare - mostly at night, when her exhaustion compounds into a headache, stretched out on the couch with her legs in Riley’s lap - sometimes, rarely, she’ll catch a glimmer of something in Riley’s eyes, a familiarity, a fear, like Riley recognizes what is happening because she’s experienced it, too.

But no. Not possible. Maya tries to keep that in her brain, to remember. _Don't get your hopes up. Not possible._

*

Outside Maya’s window, the sky has turned to an ocean. Literally. The churn of steel-blue waves dripping froth as they beat relentlessly at the glass, an entire sea hung upside down, raining salt and shells. No sun. The mirror she’s in front of ripples and shines, but she can still make it out. New ink, inflamed. A tattoo on her ribs.

A ball, maybe? It’s not big, maybe an inch across, perfectly round. Black and white and stippled with small dots in minimalist shading. What might be a heart lingers at the bottom right, halfway disappearing around the horizon.

The horizon. Of a planet.

A door slams. Maya’s hand snaps immediately to her side.

“What’s up?” Riley says, swinging into the room. Horns are sprouting just above both ears. She gives Maya an up and down glance, blinks, and says matter of factly, “You’re shirtless and dripping wet.”

Maya flinches. “Well.” She flicks water off her free hand. It seems obvious now that Riley’s said it, but she didn’t really realize until now - the sticky weight of her hair, the salt crystallizing across her arms, water flecked on her eyelashes, where it refracts shreds of silver light. “You’re not wrong.”

“I don’t mind.” Riley flounces to the bed, hair twirling behind her, and takes a seat on the edge with one heavy thump. She seems supremely unbothered by Maya’s lack of clothing or the strangeness of the world outside. Her gaze, intent but relaxed, remains steady as she watches the room. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing,” Maya says. “Can you leave?”

Ah. Real-life Maya wouldn’t dare to say this, which is how she recognizes, blearily, that this is another stinking dream. See also: Riley’s response. A laugh. And nothing else.

“Not funny.” Maya presses a finger to the ink. Heat radiates into her hand, sends a tingle through her bloodstream. “Get out.”

“No,” Riley says.

Surprise. Then something flares in Maya’s chest. Her heartbeat spikes to new heights, cold and sharp, and ratchets its way into her throat. She’s hyperaware of Riley’s eyes on her stomach, the bare slope of her shoulders, traveling to the hand pressed to her side, and the way that Riley’s gaze narrows as she stands, suspicious, and makes her way across the room. “What’s that.”

“Nothing.”

Riley snatches for her hand. Maya flinches, stumbles backward, away from the hard, intrusive scratch of Riley’s nails. Whatever was building in her stomach has reached a crescendo and is transforming quickly into terror. The tattoo she didn’t ask for. This sudden vulnerability. That Riley has access to almost every part of her. Maya’s shoulder connects with the wall; Riley’s hand connects with her wrist.

“Show me,” she demands. Maya’s breath catches. Her fingers slip open, just slightly, so subtle it could be an accident, and suddenly a golden light comes pouring out from the tattoo, spraying saltwater across the room, blazing into beams that shatter to dance, shining and brilliant, across each wall. Riley takes one look, sighs deeply, and says, “Nevermind.”

*

This sticks around much longer than it should.

*

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Riley shouts as they race down 64th toward the apartment, voice dulled by the storm overhead, reaching for Maya’s sleeve and missing it, just barely. “We love rain!”

Maya has to gasp for air. 

*

The money from her first paycheck goes to a dream analyzer, who tells her in no uncertain terms that her love for someone is driving her wild. Well. The word she uses is crazy, but Maya tries not to do that, out of respect as well as a little bit of selfishness. She doesn’t want to be crazy. Especially not for Riley. About Riley. Whatever. 

The analyzer is specific and tells Maya specifically what she doesn’t want to hear. That she’s drowning in her emotions. There’s an immature part of her, growing, but also being neglected. And a deep-seated fear of vulnerability.

Riley isn’t an option, so Maya turns to Lucas. Complains about how tired she is. How shitty her long nights are. This is around the time that Riley starts sleeping through her alarms and forgetting the ends of her sentences, but Maya is so exhausted, so distracted by her own small deaths, that she can’t do anything but watch and ignore.

*

“ - it’s winter?”

Maya’s eyes flood with tears. Manic depression. It feels a little familiar.

*

The edge of a cliff. Riley’s dog, salt-dirty and panting, at Maya’s feet. 

“I love you,” she says to it, hoping vainly that her voice will reach the real Riley, or at least snap something into place. But - of course - nothing changes.

*

Things go wrong entirely. Maya spends too much time staring at knives and at pills bottles. Then everything changes, incredibly fast. Riley admits she’s not okay. Maya admits she’s not okay. The world stops, then starts and turns the other way. 

Things change. "Fine” starts to become a regular feeling. It’s a lot of work, A lot of sleeping in, of holding Riley’s hand. Slowly, color starts to bleed back into Maya’s life. She paints. She takes her medications. They drive out to the country and find some unknown well of energy to sing from, to be happy with, and Maya puts herself together, puts Riley together, too, and things are getting better.

The nightmare ends.

*

Another one starts.

Again: “I love you,” Maya says, hoping. But - of course - nothing changes.

Riley is still not in love with her and never will be. Riley is still blowing out the door, still leaving in so many different ways, still not listening to Maya begging her to stay, high as shit but really meaning it. It’s still eleventh grade. It’s still Maya’s room, dark and hazy with the glimmer of ingested alcohol. Still clear and cold outside. Still the ghost of their kiss on Maya’s lips, simultaneously saccharine and acid, as Riley slams her way out the front door.

Everything is shit. Everything is Maya's life, refracted and reflected, the same dumb story over and over again, of loving her best friend and not knowing what to do about it. Dying for it. Because of it.

Riley said _I love you too_ as she disappeared, completely sober and still really meaning it. Obvious and raw. Probably not in the way Maya wants, but she could warp it if she wanted to.

So there is some hope left. Maya, who is already crunching three white pills between her front teeth, hopes vaguely that she’ll get to see it, but also doesn’t really care.

*

Her attempt at an inhale goes to immediate shit. Instead of oxygen, water swirls into her mouth and chokes her in half an instant, shearing algae into the spaces between her teeth. Her eyes slam open. The lake. 

Something shoves at Maya's foot, and her head breaks the surface. This second gasp for air goes somewhat better, and Maya’s lungs burn with the sudden rush of oxygen, hurting just enough to make her sure she’s still alive. The world swirls and dips. Gray light slices into Maya’s eyes, fainter than in the real world but still uncomfortably bright.

She flicks a piece of seaweed off her cheek, scrapes mud off her neck. Something laden with the taste of iron is covering the roof of her mouth, so strongly metallic that she starts to gag, grinding it between her teeth in hopes that it will disappear. It doesn’t. 

“Maya.”

“Shit,” Maya curses.

Riley, hand still wrapped around Maya’s leg, clicks her tongue disdainfully. “Don’t be like that. Are you ready?”

“For what?”

“Drowning,” Riley says, patient, like it’s a fact of life. 

“I don’t want to.”

“It’s not a choice.” Riley blinks at her once, languid, and then tugs Maya under entirely. Water fills her chest, her eyes. The seaweed sways. Maya wakes up for half a second, texts Riley _I love you,_ then goes back to a sleep that isn’t really sleep, where the world reverts to an immediate, sparkling black, and she joins both versions of Riley without even really knowing.

**Author's Note:**

> ...anyway
> 
> sincerely hope you enjoyed this. if y'all want me to write something specific, send it out to philtaatos.tumblr.com. (i post lots of updates and ideas there too.) or send other things! whatever's on your mind. I love making friends and hearing from you guys.
> 
> comments/kudos/criticism is always very very appreciated. thank you for reading (& for those of you that have been around for a while, sticking with me). i love you! :)


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